Shadow Ripper
by Tori Stone
Summary: In which a serial killer is on the loose in Amity Park. Hide yo kids, hide yo wives, and hide yo husbands y'all.
1. Chapter One

**Okay so this one should be pretty short. The next chapter of **Wide Awake** is giving me issues and I've had the idea for this one for a few weeks now so I'm gonna go ahead and start this one too. So I've got three in-progress now: this one, **Wide Awake**, and **TWKTIOK**. Hmmmmmmmkay.**

**Like I said, this one should only be like 10 chapters. Ish. Maybe a little longer. Definitely not an epic like **THLITE** or **Wide Awake**.**

**This is going to have an incredibly Criminal Minds-esque feel to it. I was a bit hesitant to make it a full-blown crossover, for two reasons: 1) I feel like I'll have a wider audience here than in the crossover section, and 2) I'm scared to death of the Criminal Minds fans (I don't think they're mean or anything like that, it's just that it's out of my comfort zone and I'm not keen on putting myself out there just yet). That being said, the OCs I created for this story are heavily based on the characters of Criminal Minds. So if you're fans of that show, you'll probably recognize them. If not, :D.**

**It's a mystery, mostly. Maybe a shade of action, but mostly mystery. Again, it's going to feel a lot like an episode of Criminal Minds.**

**Alright. I think that's pretty much it for this part of the A/N. There'll be a few more things down at the bottom, just a few answers to some questions I'm sure I'll get in the reviews.**

**I don't own Danny Phantom or Criminal Minds or anything else besides the plot of this little story.**

**Enjoy (:**

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**Shadow Ripper**

**Chapter One**

**May 21, 2013**

* * *

Agent Luke Cobb was not a man of many words. He was notorious for concealing his emotions behind a thick mask of indifference, which is what made him so incredibly gifted at his job. He really only ever showed emotion to his team, and that was only on the rarest occasions: when his son came to visit or they took a break from the harsh reality of their jobs to bond. He compartmentalized, he underreacted, he was, according to many, emotionless. But he practically exuded frostiness when a new case crossed his desk, curtosy of his team's public relations manager, Karolyn Bradford.

Cobb felt a swell of pride ignite in his chest as he walked out of his office, making his way down the hall toward the headquarters of the Behavioral Analysis Unit. Sleek silver walls rose up around him as his steps echoed off the meticulously polished black tile floors. Other agents who were making their way down the hall in small groups instantly fell silent upon spotting him, nodding their greetings to him as they passed. Cobb returned their nods curtly, his mouth pressed into a thin, grim line.

The doors to the BAU stretched from floor to ceiling. They were made entirely of glass, affording him and anyone else outside a clear view of the desks that made up the bull pen within. As he approached the doors, he took a moment to seek out each member of the team he lead. As he spotted them, he wondered for what was probably the hundredth time when and why they all started referring to each other by their last names while at work.

He could clearly see Isabelle Pax leaning against the desk across the aisle from her own, causally chatting with Anna Washington while twirling a lock of her shining black hair around her long index finger. Her hazel eyes sparkled as she glanced up at the ceiling, before glancing back down at Wash and murmuring something through grinning lips. Wash tilted back in her computer hair, allowing her blonde hair to cascade down her back as she laughed. The women turned simultaneously as a rather large, well-muscled man approached them. Claude Sangster was the image of brawn. The muscles of his arms and back rippled as he crossed his arms over his chest. The flourescent lights above glistened against his bald head, making the dark stubble dancing across his jaw even more noticeable. He was a notorious serial flirter; every woman he ever encountered outside of the team was instantly enchanted. Cobb could see him asking the women something, and Pax immediately responded with what appeared to be a sarcastic remark. Wash giggled behind a report on her desk as Pax and Sangster set into a friendly banter.

As this was happening, Cobb spotted the last three members of his team. Benson Ridley, an awkwardly tall and lanky but incredibly bright young man, was in that moment a bright, shining red. He was spluttering an apology through his fierce blush to Bradford, who appeared to be dripping with coffee. A small grin, imperceptible unless you spent copious amounts of time with him, turned the corner of Cobb's mouth upward; if Ridley loved anything, it was his morning cup of coffee. Bradford's eyes were closed, her face stony, and her knuckles white in her tight grip on the files in her arms, though Cobb recognized the way the corners of her eyes creased as her working very hard to conceal an exasperated grin. Leaning against the railing of the catwalk raised three feet above them was Ryan Faison, his second in command and the father figure of the team, who was chuckling at the scene unfolding below him.

All of this Cobb absorbed in just a few seconds. He clenched his jaw as he wrapped his hand around the handle of the door on his right and yanked it open. His team turned toward him and immediately froze as his facial expression registered.

"Conference room," He said, traipsing up the miniature ramp leading to the catwalk. He kept his eyes forward, nodding to Faison as he passed. Faison fell into step beside him as the rest of the team scattered around the bull pen to gather their supplies.

Five minutes later, Sangster sidled in and the door clicked shut behind him. Bradford waited patiently until everyone was sitting in their respective seats, before passing each person a file bulging with the details of their newest case and turning toward the widescreen television mounted on the wall behind the head of the table.

"So, we're heading to Amity Park, Illinois," She said, pressing a button on her remote. A map appeared on screen, zoomed in on the north-eastern portion of Illinois, centered over an area called Amity Park. "Four women have all been abducted in that area recently. Greta Accorso, twenty-five," A young woman with shining black hair not unlike Pax's appeared on the screen, "Meagan Colbert, twenty-three," the smiling face of a second young woman with dark brown hair set in waves framing her face appeared beside Greta's, "Laura Sayen, twenty-one," yet another face appeared beside Meagan's, her dark brown hair pulled up in a pony tail away from her face, "and Adele Berger, twenty-two," the fourth face half-hidden behind dark bangs materialized beside Laura's.

"They each disappeared late at night while they were out on their own over the last two months." Bradford glanced away from the television and flashed a quick, uncertain smile toward the right side of the table. Cobb peered over his case file to find Pax and Ridley leaning away from each other, Pax sporting a lovely pink glow as she straightened up in her seat. Cobb felt his eyes flash dangerously, warning them to stay serious as they went over the details of the case. "They were each missing for five days, before turning up in various parts of Amity. Greta was found in an alley by a homeless man," Greta's still, pale body, curled in on itself, appeared below her smiling face, "Meagan beside a dumpster behind a rather prominent office building in downtown Amity," Meagan's body appeared, in a similar position as Greta, "Laura in an abandoned vehicle on the outskirts of Amity," the car was rusted, obviously left on the side of the road for decades, and Laura was in the fetal position across the backseat of the car, "and Adele was actually found in the bushes on the edge of the pond in the local park." someone hacked the branches of the bush away to get a bird's eye view of Adele, curled into the fetal position in the dirt like the other women.

"What was the cause of death on these women?" Wash asked, tapping the end of her pen against her chin.

"That's what's _really_ interesting about this case." Bradford said. "Each woman died a different way. Greta was electrocuted. Meagan was injected with some sort of barbiturate, the lab is still running tests to figure out exactly what the substance is. Laura died of severe dehydration. Adele apparently drowned."

"Any evidence of sexual abuse?"

"None that they could find."

"So what makes local PD think it's the work of one serial killer?" Sangster asked, leaning back in his seat and furrowing his brow as he examined the photographs. "Other than the fact that they were all found in the same position,"

"They were all found wearing the same clothes they disappeared in, aside from missing their shoes. Upon closer investigation, they realized that they all had glass imbedded in their feet, like they'd been walking across a bed of broken glass. They already ran tests, there were no fingerprints on the glass, but it all came from the same source. This detail hasn't been released to the public. Also, there's evidence of identical taser burns on all four of their torsos, in almost identical places, another detail only known among authorities. Not to mention that they were all missing for five days before turning up, each posed in the same position."

"In highly public places." Faison said. "He left them in the open, where people could easily find them. It suggests that he's flaunting what he's doing. But the fetal position of their bodies suggests that he's remorseful, as if he thinks of them like they're his children."

"So, four victims into this case...why are they just now asking for our help?" Sangster crossed his arms over his chest, cocking an eyebrow at the television screen.

"Another woman vanished last night. She's a rather public figure around town. She's a known associate of their local super hero figure, Danny Phantom." She clicked a button on the remote, summoning a slightly blurred photo of a man in a black and white spandex suit hanging upside-down in the air above a darkly dressed young woman with chin-length black hair, who was looking up at him and laughing. "Samantha Manson, in addition to being the self-proclaimed side-kick to Danny Phantom, is the daughter of a very wealthy family. I mean, very wealthy. Like, they hang out with people like Bill Gates."

"She's only seventeen," Pax murmured, hazel eyes glued to the image of the latest victim on the television screen.

"She does seem a bit young, compared to the other victims," Faison rubbed the dark hairs of his beard. "Are we sure she was taken by the same guy?"

"The details of her abduction match the other four. She was walking home from a friend's house late last night, and she never arrived home. They think she tried to take a short cut through a park between the friend's house and hers, where he was presumably waiting to ambush her." Bradford recited.

"What does the timeline look like on this one?"

"Three weeks passed between the discovery of Greta's body and Meagan's disappearance. A week and a half between Meagan and Laura, three days between Laura and Adele, and Adele was found yesterday morning. I've already mentioned that Samantha vanished last night."

"So he's escalating," Faison grunted.

"The fact that less than twenty-four hours passed between the discovery of Adele's body and the disappearance of Samantha suggests that he's close to a psychotic break." Ridley said, his voice ringing with detached, clinical professionalism. Cobb could see Pax rolling her eyes. "But the lack of escalation in the time period in which he holds them suggests that he's highly organized."

"The media's already named him the Shadow Ripper." Bradford said carefully. A general sound of dissent rippled through the team.

"When are they gonna learn?" Pax muttered.

"Regardless, it's our job now to help them find this guy before any more women disappear." Cobb said, his voice low. "Samantha's parents' house has been named the official headquarters of the investigation."

"What, no local police station?" Sangster asked incredulously.

"They all seem to agree that the Manson's house is bigger," Cobb shrugged. "I suppose we'll be the judge of that when we get there. We need to be careful with this case. We've dealt with celebrities before and we've dealt with small towns, but this is going to be a hybrid of the two unlike anything we've ever seen. Samantha Manson is known by every single person in that town, both for her family's wealth and for her association with Phantom. She's his side-kick and from what I've heard he's got a massive hero complex. We need to be particularly careful with this one."

"Are we gonna get this Danny Phantom guy helping us?" Pax interrupted.

"Yeah, why're they asking for our help when this guy's a super hero?" Sangster asked, his upper lip curling over 'super hero.'

"He specializes in ghost related crime. Amity Park is the most haunted city in the nation." Ridley answered quickly. "He himself is a ghost, but he seems to be one of the only good ghosts in existance."

"So will he be helping us with this case?" Wash asked flatly.

"I don't know," Cobb shrugged. "We need to be prepared for anything. We're in the air in twenty minutes."

* * *

**Let me address some questions before a dozen people ask them:**

**1. This piece is going to be a lot like an episode of Criminal Minds, meaning that the point of view is going to flicker between the team and the victim. So, no, it will not be exclusively from Cobb's point of view.**

**2. They'll be in the next chapter.**

**3. I thought I was going to have more things to answer down here. Guess not.**

**Alrighty then. Next chapter's already written, but I'm gonna wait until tomorrow to post it. Review if you feel the desire to, don't if you don't, I suppose (:**

**Thanks for reading! If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a review or to message me directly. I do enjoy talking to you peeps.**

**- Tori**


	2. Chapter Two

**Chapter two, as promised. I had to make a few minor tweaks and rewrite part of it, but it was pretty much already done.**

**Guys. Hangover 3 comes out tomorrow. I think I'm the only person in the world that's excited about this. Except my dad's birthday is tomorrow so I'm gonna have to wait until Friday after I get off work to go see it.**

**NOOOOOO.**

**Also the new Star Trek movie and the Great Gatsby. I have a lot to catch up on at the theater this weekend. :P**

**NO SPOILERS I SWEAR IF ANY OF YOU RUIN ANY OF THOSE MOVIES FOR ME I WILL HURT YOU.**

**Okay. I'm done now. I don't know when I'll update again, I'll get back as soon as I can. (:**

**I don't own Danny Phantom or Criminal Minds or anything else you recognize. Just the storyline.**

**Enjoy (:**

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**Shadow Ripper**

**Chapter Two**

**May 22, 2013**

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Twenty-three minutes later, the BAU's private jet was in the air, soaring toward Illinois. Cobb glanced up from the case file, which he had been studying carefully since take-off, to instead study his team. Wash's case file was balanced across her crossed legs, but all of her attention was focused on her cell phone. She was probably texting her live-in fiance to let him know that she would be gone for a few days. Across from her was Pax and Ridley, together as always, though Ridley was completely absorbed in his file. Pax was staring out the window to her right, watching the clouds slip by beneath them. Cobb could already tell she was going to have a hard time with this case; he could see it in her eyes as she sidled down the aisle before take-off. She was going to take this very, very personally, and he would have to remind himself to go easy on her. He made a mental note to keep her with Ridley as much as possible, since he had a particular talent for calming her down while keeping things perfectly professional.

Sangster sat with his back to those three, head bobbing gently to the beat of the music blasting through his noise-cancelling headphones as his eyes travelled over his case file. Bradford was on his left, doodling aimlessly in a notebook. Her case file sat forgotten on the floor at her feet; she knew it better than anyone at that point, being the first of the team to look over it. Cobb watched her pen trace a long, curved line, before glancing back at Pax one last time. She felt his gaze and turned to meet it. She flashed him an uncertain smile, which he answered with a nod. Faison shifted in his seat across from Cobb as Ridley glanced up at Pax, drawing Cobb's attention away from the younger team members toward his second-in-command.

Faison leaned forward. "Everything alright?" He asked, adjusting his reading glasses a bit lower on the bridge of his nose to arch an eyebrow at Cobb.

"Fine." Cobb grunted. Faison eyed him a moment longer, before falling back against his seat and adjusting his file to catch the light outside the window.

Three quiet hours later, the jet touched down at Amity Park airport. Cobb was the first one off the plane, slinging his go-bag over his shoulder as he climbed down the stairs of the jet. A rather large gentleman in a black suit approached him from the far end of the landing strip.

"Agent Cobb?" He asked. Cobb nodded. "I'm Phil Jackson. The Mansons have asked me to pick you and your team up."

"We requested two SUVs," Cobb said blankly. He could hear his team exiting the jet and gathering in a small mob behind him.

"Yes, those are at the Manson's manor. I'm just here to drive you and your team from the airport to the Manson's house."

Cobb could see Faison staring at him from the corner of his eye. "Alright," Cobb said stiffly. The moment Phil Jackson turned his back, Cobb flashed an incredulous look at Faison, who raised his eyebrows and shrugged.

"Personal chauffeur," Sangster muttered darkly as the group followed after the driver. "Nice touch. Real classy."

"Sangster," Cobb warned. He fell silent instantly, though Cobb could feel waves of irritation rolling off Sangster's form.

Cobb stopped short when the car came into view. It was a Hummer limousine, black and shining in the Illinois mid-afternoon sun. "Oh, my," Wash gasped. Phil Jackson was standing beside the limo, holding the door open and watching the team expectantly. After a moment's hesitation, Cobb stepped forward.

The ride to the Manson's home was very short, overall. Cobb only had time to decline one glass of water before the limo was slowing and pulling off to the side of the road. A sprawling mansion sat thirty yards away from the road behind a shining wrought-iron fence that rose seven feet up from the ground. Cobb was just able to make out a few humanoid figures moving in the window of the mansion. He was still attempting to absorb the image before him when Phil Jackson opened his door.

"I'll take care of your luggage, don't worry about that. Just go ahead and get inside, the Mansons are waiting very anxiously for you." Phil said as he yanked two go-bags out of the back of the limo. Cobb clenched his jaw and turned to lead the way toward the front door of the mansion.

They were only about halfway up the walkway when the door was flung open from the inside. A tall, slender man with shining perfectly coifed blonde hair and well-worn lines set into his face stood in the doorway, beady blue eyes darting nervously between each member of the team. Cobb raised his head and opened his mouth, intending to murmur a greeting, but before he could even take a breath a woman appeared beside the man. Her red hair may have normally been perfect, round and high and so Southern it was shocking, but Cobb could clearly see she'd run her hands through the nest repeatedly in her nerves. These were the parents, without a doubt.

"Jeremy and Pamela, I assume?" Cobb asked when he was within earshot. They both nodded, eyes wide. "Agent Luke Cobb. This is my team. Agent Ryan Faison, Agent Claude Sangster, Agent Anna Washington, Agent Isabelle Pax, Agent Karolyn Bradford, and Agent Benson Ridley." He pointed to each agent as he said their names. "We make up one team of the Behavioral Analysis Unit. We're here to do everything we can to find your daughter."

"Thank you," Pamela whispered through bright red trembling lips. "Please, come inside."

The house was just as ornate inside as Cobb imagined it would be. Shining marble floors stretched into dozens of rooms leading off of the entryway as the Mansons ushered him and his team inside. The door closed with a soft click as Pamela bustled around the edge of the group. "This way, we've become centralized in the parlor."

The parlor was off to the right. The door was ajar, offering Cobb a clear view of the interior before they entered. He could see a large whiteboard set up on a stand against the far side of the wall. Several men in police uniforms were gathered around the whiteboard. "Boys!" Pamela called as she crossed the threshhold. Every eye in the room turned toward her as Cobb carefully followed behind her. "The FBI people are here!"

Pax watched rather distantly as Cobb introduced himself to each police officer and pointed each team member out. She scanned the room as Cobb began his usual speech about their role in the investigation and what they would be doing for the duration of the case, absorbing each man and woman that stared back at her, before two people in particular caught her eye.

Two boys, probably about the same age as Samantha, were sitting on the edge of one of the couches. They sat close together, as far away as possible from the whiteboard and consequently, the team. They both looked ghastly. The one sitting closer to her already looked as if he had not slept in weeks: his skin was pale, dark bags hung beneath his eyes, his raven hair stood up at odd angles and the rims of his electric blue eyes were tinged with red. He was looking back at her, emotions flicking through his eyes so quickly she could barely keep up with them. The boy to his left shifted, drawing her attention away. He adjusted his red beret on his head, his horn-rimmed glasses catching the sunlight streaming through the windows as he glanced between his friend and Pax.

Pax resisted the urge to tap her foot as she waited for Cobb to finish his speech. Ridley shifted beside her, his elbow brushing lightly against her arm. The turmoil in her heart settled slightly.

The moment Cobb finished his speech, each team member was free to move about the parlor, associating themselves with the details of the case in whichever way they chose. It was their chance to become acquainted with the family and friends of the victim, to feel out the temperament of the town, and to accurately imagine the consequences of being too late to find the victim. Pax waited until each of her team mates were absorbed in their selected methods before hesitantly stepping toward the boys that caught her eye a few minutes earlier.

The raven-haired boy shrank away from her as she perched on the opposite end of the couch. He refused to meet her gaze now, unlike his friend. The boy in the red beret leaned down and muttered something in his ear.

"Hi," Pax said cautiously. "My name is Agent Isabelle Pax, but you can call me Bella."

"Tucker," The boy in the red beret reached around his raven-haired friend to shake Pax's hand. "And this is Danny."

"Tucker and Danny." Pax murmured, nodding in affirmation. "Are you boys friends with Samantha?"

"Sam. Her name is _Sam_." Danny spat through clenched teeth. "Not _Samantha_," He said her full name as if it was a slur. "_Sam_."

"Relax, she didn't know," Tucker said reproachfully. He flashed an apologetic smile at Pax as the muscles in Danny's back and arms rippled under tension. "Sorry. But, yes, Sam's our best friend."

"I'm very sorry. I want you to know that we're going to do everything we can to find her and the man that took her." Pax said solemnly. Tucker nodded as Danny clenched his jaw. "Did either one of you see her yesterday?"

"We were the last people to see her before it happened." Tucker said. "We were over at Danny's house."

"Her curfew's eleven. It's the city's curfew for people under the age of eighteen. I offered to walk her home because I knew, I just _knew_ something bad was gonna happen, but she wouldn't let me. Her parents don't like me. She didn't want them to yell at me." Danny's voice was hollow and haunted. "I should have just walked her home. I shouldn't have let her talk me out of it. I would have been there when he tried to attack her and I would have _murdered_ him."

"Dude," Tucker said quietly.

"You need to understand that this is _not_ your fault." Pax said gently. "You are _not_ the one that caused this. You can help her by helping me and my team learn more about her."

Danny turned his head slightly, eying her warily. "I need to know _everything_ about her." Pax said, her voice a shade firmer.

"Why?" Danny whispered.

"When we figure out where he's keeping her, we need to be able to predict with some accuracy what she is going to do." Pax explained. "We don't want to risk causing any injury to her while getting her out. Knowing as much about her as possible can help us with that."

Danny and Tucker exchanged a look. Tucker shrugged. Danny turned back to Pax, squaring his shoulders and steeling himself. "What do you need to know?"

"Everything." Pax said.

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**Again, I haven't forgotten about **Wide Awake** or **TWKTIOK**, I'm just having a few issues getting those written out. Thank you for being patient with me about those so far, and I hope you guys continue to be patient until then. Thank you (:**

**Hope you're enjoying this so far! More to come (:**

**Again, any if you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave a review or send me a private message (:**

**- Tori**


	3. Chapter Three

**This chapter is short but I'm so tired right now that I just don't care.**

**I saw the Hangover Part 3 last night and oh my God. I don't care how bad the second one was, if you've seen the first two, GO SEE IT. It was SERIOUSLY the best one of the three. By far.**

**Ugh.**

**Okay, so. Back to this. It's really short. I already said that. We get to see a little bit of Sam in this chapter. It's gonna be a while before we hear from her again, so savor this.**

**Ummm that's pretty much all I got at this point. I hope you guys don't hate me for how short this is. Blah.**

**I don't own Danny Phantom.**

**Enjoy (:**

* * *

**Shadow Ripper**

**Chapter Three**

**May 25, 2013**

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The first thing Sam was aware of was the distinct smell of must. It reminded her of being in a cave. It was strong, to the point of suffocating, and she found it difficult to draw a breath. A soft cough split her dry, cracked lips apart. Something warm and wet was trickling down the right side of her face.

Her eyes split open and she realized that the difficulty she was having with inhaling was not entirely caused by the rank air. A thick polyester strap held her chest in place. Panic flared in her veins; she was strapped down to a chair. Thick rope knotted around her wrists and ankles almost tight enough to cut off the circulation, and another thin polyester band strapped her head into place. Overall, she was afforded very little room for movement.

Adrenaline was quickly searing through her system. Strange little squeals and grunts ripped through her throat as she strained against her bonds through the haze of panic. She could feel her lungs expanding dangerously, threatening to pull her into a hyperventilation attack, when suddenly her brain caught up with her.

Almost instantaneously, she stilled and silenced herself. This was not the first time she'd been kidnapped, being friends with Danny and all. She ran through her mental check list: first, she was restrained. Obviously. Second, she was not blindfolded. Third, she was not gagged. She ran her tongue over her lips experimentally, confirming what she already thought. Fourth, she was injured.

Not seriously. It felt like a welt on the right side of her head, bleeding slightly. She'd definitely had far worse. In fact, everything about the situation was mild compared to previous kidnappings. She shivered when she recalled Skulker stuffing her in a rusty cage and dangling her over a vat of molten lava for six hours before Danny finally found them. All in all, she was okay. Or, as okay as she could be in her current situation.

She seemed to be alone, though she was not completely sure. The chair was bolted to the floor in the middle of a large stone basement. A floodlight was mounted to the ceiling directly above her, casting a ring of light about six feet wide around her. The corners of the room were cast in shadows, and in her heightened awareness, those shadows seemed to be moving.

She nearly jumped out of her skin when a sound as loud as a gunshot exploded somewhere behind her. Another sound exactly like it deafened her just a moment later, and on the third time she realized the sound was someone clapping. "_Very_ well done, Miss Manson." A masculine voice slithered out of the shadows somewhere behind her head.

"Tell me about her personality. Type A or Type B?"

"A, definitely A." Danny said. Tucker nodded firmly. Pax supressed a grin, turning away from the boys to examine the books on the handsome oak bookshelf that stretched up to the ceiling above her head. They were sitting on her bed, closely watching Pax familiarize herself with Sam's room. She was careful to place everything she moved exactly where she found it as she slowly wound her way around the room. She pulled a biography of Joan of Arc with a well-worn spine off one of the shelves, flipping through and pausing to scan the pages Sam marked.

"She's really aggressive." Tucker said. "She's really independent, she's really firm in her beliefs. She doesn't take crap from anyone."

"But she's also really sweet," Danny said, casting a reproachful gaze at Tucker. Pax raised her eyebrows at the boys as she replaced the biography on the shelf. "She's got a huge heart, she just doesn't wear it on her sleeve."

Pax nodded, running her finger over the spines of her books. The complete lack of dust on both the books and the shelves themselves suggested that Sam spent a large amount of time reading. The corners of her mouth turned up in a grin; the similarities between herself and this girl were already striking. She clearly recalled spending endless hours in her local library as a young adult, not to mention being reprimanded dozens of times by authority figures for her own hard-headed ways.

"She likes reading, huh?" Pax murmured, still scanning the bookshelf.

"She said that books were her first love." Danny said, and she could hear the dreamy smile in his voice. She heard Tucker chuckle. "Shut up, Tucker."

"What?" Pax turned in time to see a brilliantly blushing Danny looking away from an apologetic-looking Tucker. "What was that?"

"Nothing," Danny said quickly.

"No..." Pax said, pointing at the boys and moving away from the bookshelf. An impressively tall tower of CDs caught her eye beside a state of the art stereo system. "That wasn't nothing, that was definitely something."

"No it wasn't, it was nothing." Danny's voice was rising dangerously.

"I'm telling her." Tucker said suddenly. Danny whipped around to face his friend. "She said she needs to know everything, and this counts as part of everything!" Tucker raised himself up off of the bed, avoiding Danny as the boy lunged forward. "Danny's in love with Sam!" Tucker blurted.

Pax froze mid-stride. "Dude!" Danny shouted, his voice breaking.

"And she loves him, too!" Tucker said quickly. Danny paused mid-grab. "They love each other but they're too scared to admit it even though I've told both of them a billion times that they like each other."

Danny slumped back into the bed as Pax changed direction to lean against the footboard. "I don't see how that's important." Danny grumbled. "That's not her personality, it's not who she is."

"It _is_ important, actually," Pax said, drumming her fingers against the footboard. "You say she's really headstrong, but the fact that she likes you as more than a friend lets us know that she isn't opposed to a relationship. She's independent, but not a lone wolf. So if she escapes wherever she's being held and finds herself in an isolated area, we know that she won't hesitate to ask for help if she can find it."

Danny furrowed his brow and lowered his gaze to his knees. "She really does like me?" He asked, peering up at Tucker through his lashes.

"Dude, she loves you. I'm not even exaggerating. At all. Sam Manson is in love with you."

"Where am I?" Sam asked. Her throat was just as parched as her lips.

"Insignificant to this portion of the test." The mystery man was careful to stay behind her immobilized head. She felt her nostrils flare in frustration.

"Test? What are you talking about?"

"How many times do I have to tell you? We've talked about this over and _over_ again. You _must_ learn to speak _only_ when spoken to, Rachel." The man said, his voice dropping a few octaves.

Sam did not have enough time to correct him before a sizzling pain unlike anything she had ever felt before burst through her veins, sending her brain haywire as her body collapsed in on itself in convulsions.

* * *

**Again, if you've seen the first two parts of the Hangover, GO SEE PART THREE. YOU WON'T REGRET IT.**

**If you don't like the Hangover, I'm going to quote my mom really quick: "If you don't think that movie's funny then there's something wrong with you."**

**But really though.**

**Thanks for reading, and as always, leave a review if you feel like it, if you don't, don't. (:**

**- Tori**


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